"Invisible Ink is a powerful tool for anyone who wants to become a better screenwriter. With elegance and precision, Brian McDonald uses his deep understanding of story and character to pass on essential truths about dramatic writing. Ignore him at your peril."
—Jim Taylor (Academy Award?- winning screenwriter of Sideways and Election)

Tuesday, August 06, 2013

Yes, Documentaries Also Use Story Structure

One of the questions I get most is about story structure and
is, “Is it different for documentaries?” No. In fact one of the best
structuralists working in film of any kind is documentarian Ken Burns. I watch
his work in awe. If you want to know how stories work, you should become
familiar with what he does.

There is something I often urge people to do, but few ever
bother: to understand how stories work you must learn to observe them in their
natural habitat. You must pay attention to the way people talk in real life to
discover when people tell stories, why people tell stories, how people tell
stories, and how often.

As I have written before, story structure is natural; we all
use it every day and most of us are relatively good at it. Yes, some people are
better and others less so, but for the most part we are pretty good at telling
stories. It is when we are consciously constructing them that we get confused.

No matter the genre or medium, story construction is
basically the same. When you are able to see this clearly, you will have
reached another level of storytelling. So many people become confused by the
surface of a story—what I call the clothing that a story wears.

So, I might be lecturing someplace and someone may say when
I am making a particular point, “But what about sci-fi, my story is sci-fi.
Does this work for sci-fi?”

You can replace the word sci-fi with comedy, drama, western,
dramedy, musical, romance, historical fiction, supernatural romance, historical
romance, supernatural comedy, docudrama, horror, fantasy, or countless other
combinations. For some reason people think that their particular genre will
have special structural concerns. (This may be true of your story, but it will
not have anything to do with genre.)

I guess that when people ask these questions it means that I
have done a poor job of explaining exactly what structure is. Story structure
is a way of arranging story events that makes the meaning of those events clear
and engaging for one’s audience, to elicit the maximum effect.

In some ways each story has its particular demands, but
there are some basic structural forms that work more often than not. Ken Burns
uses basic story structure so well that he makes what he does look effortless
and his stories could not be more effective.

At the opening of each series and of each episode of that
series he “tells you what he’s gonna tell you.” If the show is about Mark
Twain, he lets you know just who Mark Twain was and why he matters—and he does
this right up front.

Rather than making you feel like you have already seen the
story, it makes you more interested in
hearing the story. This is one of the most difficult things to get students to
understand, because they often want everything to be a surprise. But what good
is a surprise if the audience isn’t interested enough to start listening?

Then Ken Burns will tell you the story in detail, and with
emotional truths that give the story resonance. He makes the history relevant
by using emotion to connect you to historical events. He makes the story matter
because he makes the audience care.

This is no different than what one would do in a fictional
or dramatic narrative piece.The
structure is the same because a story is a story. Period.

Then Ken Burns “tells you what he told you.” He sums up what
you have just seen. He tells you again why it matters. And now, because you
have an emotional context for the information, it has even more power than it
did upon the first hearing.

This is classic structure and Ken Burns, and his team, are
masters of it. His latest film THE DUST BOWL does this amazing well. And his
film THE WAR, about World War II, moves me in a way that few current filmmakers
have.

One of my very favorite films of all time is the landmark
documentary by the Maysles brothers, David and Albert, and the brilliant editor
Charlotte Zwerin, called SALESMAN.

This is a film about Bible salesmen in 1969 and their
attempt to sell expensive bibles to poor people. There is a humanity to this
film that is so powerful that my guess is that David Mamet saw this film before
he wrote his Pulitzer Prize-winning play GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS. There are some
pretty striking similarities. (This is nothing against David Mamet, I just
mention it to say that this film has a real impact on viewers.)

It was one of the early documentaries not to have a narrator
talking over the film, telling the audience what was happening and how to feel
about it. This film is all structure. As with most documentaries, the structure
was found in the editing.

The film might be seen by some as merely a character study. I
often don’t like things called character studies because what it almost always
means is that the characters are “interesting,” but that there is no story to
speak of. SALESMAN is great because it is a story that looks and feels like a
character study, proving that one need not sacrifice character for story or vice
versa. When these elements work in concert, as in SALESMAN, the result is
engaging and moving.

Paul Brennan with the Maysles

The film starts with a shot of the Bible and a man’s
arthritic hands. This is the salesman who becomes the main character of the
story. In this opening he is in someone’s home and is trying—and failing—to
make a sale. This opening scene is a real “tell them what you are going to tell
them” moment. This is the story of a salesman desperate to make sales, who in
the end wonders if he’s made the right choice with his life. It is amazing.

The first act introduces the main character Paul “The Badger”
Brennan and all of his fellow salesmen. These other salesmen are characters
that allow us to, by comparison, measure the success or failure of Paul. This
is a basic structural technique and works exactly the same no matter if the
story is a piece of narrative fiction or a documentary.

My favorite examples that use to explain this technique are
the pigs in the story THE THREE LITTLE PIGS. It’s really the story of one pig—the
pig who used bricks to build his house. But it is through the failure of the
first two pigs, who build their respective houses from straw and sticks, that
we can measure the success of the last pig. This is the very same technique
used in SALESMAN.

There is a great scene in the first act where the supervisor
of these traveling salesmen states that money is being made in the “Bible
business.” And, he says, that anyone who is not making money is to blame. This
sets up the attitude of Paul’s boss—that if Paul isn’t making sales, it’s his
fault. So we know the stakes—Paul could lose his job.

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Again, this is basic story structure used brilliantly. Set
up a character’s goal—what does the character want?It also helps to let people know the stakes—what happens if
the character doesn’t get what s/he wants? Then let the audience know about the
obstacle to the goal—why can’t the character just go get what s/he wants?

This obstacle can be physical, emotional, or a combination.
The combination, if you can do it, can hit an audience deeply. In JAWS, the
chief of police must kill the shark that is terrorizing his community. The
shark is both a goal and an obstacle, as it wants to avoid being killed. This
is a physical obstacle.

But there is another obstacle and it is emotional—the chief
is scared out of his mind of the water. He must overcome both the outer and
inner obstacle in order to achieve his goal.

In SALESMAN, Paul faces the physical obstacle that his
potential buyers are cash-strapped. But we also see that the number of
rejections he gets is taking its toll on him, and he is losing confidence,
which, in turn, makes selling even harder.To make his sales, he must overcome this emotional goal as
well.

This film uses the elements of structure to great emotional
effect and because of this tells a compelling human drama. This is why it is
both a classic and a masterpiece.

Remember that a story is a story, and structure works in the
telling of any story regardless of form. The films of Ken Burns, and SALESMAN,
are stellar examples of this.

13 comments:

So glad you mentioned Salesman, a very neglected work. For a brilliantly structured documentary, look way back to Joris Ivens' Rain.There are, of course, many others. So many people make the mistake of thinking documentaries are supposed to be objective (whatever that is).Of peripheral interest on this topic: a docudrama from Philip Noyce circa 1978, Newsfront, which plays with film real vs. real real by incorporating newsreel footage with the actors playing those who shot it as the industry was dying. Fascinating.

This is so well explained! Thank you for making it so clear. I'm curious on hearing more of your thoughts on documentaries that tell the story with narrators vs. with editing. I've noticed recently that a lot of stories that use too much narration seem to be "too preachy" because they lean on the crutch of telling rather than showing. I wonder if that can also happen happen with narrated documentaries?

Being too preachy is always a danger no matter the technique. It is all a matter of letting the viewer connect the dots.

Things can feel too preachy when the filmmaker does too much of the work. When I am working I always ask myself what I can leave out. Sometimes leaving out sound is powerful. Or sometimes letting action happen off screen is good. Sometime sound and no picture works. There is a great scene in SALESMAN where the scene is mostly a shot of a woman as she struggles with the decision of whether or not to buy a Bible from a salesman who won't let up.

There is also a scene in the film that does the same thing in reverse. The shot is mostly of the desperate salesman as he tries to close the deal.

There is a great scene in the Capra film MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON where much of it takes place on the fidgeting hands of actor Jimmy Stewart.

There is also a great scene in Paddy Chayefsy's MARTY where Marty has a phone conversation with a woman who rejects him over the phone, but we only hear Marty's side of the conversation. It's a powerful scene.

When an element is left out it allows the viewer to fill in the missing piece and this gets them involved.

So whether you chose narration or not is not as important as making sure the viewers are allowed to make some connections for themselves.

I'll be reading your books for the rest of my life. I knew on the first page of The Golden Theme (and the last page, because I always read those two pages first) that you would be teaching me always. After half a century of trying to write something true I was very fortunate to find your works.

I'm writing to you now for what might seem a very silly reason, but I write out of real heartbreak.

A character I loved very much on a TV series was destroyed. She wasn't killed before her story was over, which would have felt like a lie. She was brutally beaten and raped, and with this turn she has been brought low, her courage and grace vanquished; she's a wraith of her former self. Women intuitively sense the kind of loss that can come from this crime. As a survivor I know personally that it is not just an initiation into the dark, and it doesn't necessarily turn you into a butterfly. It's pure destruction, like the loss of limbs. You can thrive and have children and even run races after your legs have been cut off, but you will never get your legs back.

There's a lot of pain in the fan community in regards to this and I believe the pain transcends the crime itself. Something feels brutal and WRONG in the very storytelling.

This is why I'm writing. Do you have any advice on how I can best deconstruct the story to find out what it is that feels so utterly wrong? As I said, I believe it is not just the rape. Something is rotten in the state of this story, and I'm desperate to unravel it.

I'm going through your books chapter by chapter again, using each tool to try to get insight on what has happened. My biggest fear, I suppose, is that I can't handle the truth in the telling, if it is truth. It doesn't feel that way. Somehow it feels like Satan by Machine.

I know you're busy and wouldn't waste your time on a mere fangirl rant. I've been writing with every technique I know to try to get to the bottom of why this story turn feels like such a betrayal not only of truth, and not only of promises made, but of us as the audience.

Thank you so much for any advice you might give me. And thank so much for your amazing works.

Booking Information:Please post a link to your booking information, to book you for consultations or speaking engagements.

As someone with a PR background, It's my un-asked for but strongly worded advice to you that it's okay to post that info here; it doesn't take away the work you give away here so freely, it just lets people pay you for a valuable service or recommend you to others when we can.

For example, when I look back at the film camp I put on, I would have paid you for the advice you gave me, I just couldn't find any way to contact you except for to leave a note on your blog.

"The world isn't made up of atoms, it's made up of stories." - Muriel Rukeyser

Ive just finished your book, the golden theme, which was like a light switch going off in my brain. So far ive read ink spots and invisible ink, and now Ive found your blog. Yay! Your writing has not failed to teach me something new about writing each time I read and re-read it. This post brought home the importance of using both inner and outer conflict in a new way to me. Thank you! Keep writing and teaching! I hope one day to attend one of your teaching sessions and to meet you. God bless.